The Other Half
by Stargirltc
Summary: Welcome to The Other Side. The up-and-coming haunted house that is sending five people tumbling into a world of mystery and fear.
1. Chapter 1 (Charlie)

"Charlie! Charlie! We wanna go to the candy store!" Jamie and Melanie screeched.  
I strapped on their seat belts in the backseat and proceeded to slip into the driver's side, counting the seconds until I could drop them back off at my aunt's house.  
"Sorry guys, no can do. Your mom specifically told me not to give you guys anything loaded with sugar." I backed out of my driveway, cranking up the volume on my out-of-date radio, while heading down the empty, foggy street.  
I was grateful that I didn't have to baby-sit my little cousins all night like I usually did on Sunday . My aunt never failed to leave an out-of-breath message saying, "Charlotte! I'm anchoring the nine o' clock news again! Can you watch Joey and Mel for me please? Thanks doll! I'll be back by ten thirty." Even though everyone called me Charlie, my aunt was still the only one to call me by my real name. I guess she thought it was a bit more elegant.  
As soon as I entered my house later that night, after dropping my cousins back off at their house, I shook my boots off and abandoned them by the door. Although it was mid September and it wasn't actually snowing yet, I insisted on wearing my boots anyway because it was a very cold day. My dog, Slug, jumped excitedly around my feet. I bent down to give her a quick scratch behind the ear, and made my way into my kitchen. I grabbed myself a cup of juice and a small bowl of pita chips before retreating up to my room.  
I hung my hoodie on my door and plopped down on my bed, opening up my laptop and waiting for my internet to load.  
My phone buzzed on my pillow next to me. I looked at the I.D. to see my mom's picture. "Hi mom."  
"Hi sweetie, I just wanted to let you know that I am going to be in a little late tonight. We are finishing up our filing here and then we are all going out for Italian." I could hear the scuffling of papers in the background.  
"Italian?! Why do you get to eat delicious Italian food while I'm here with nothing to eat except for pita chips and a half-eaten, leftover egg roll. Oh, and this little lime- or possibly kiwi… I'm not exactly sure." I smiled at my attempt at wittiness.  
"Oh cheer up Charlie. I'll bring you food. Gotta go now though. Love you!"  
"Love you." I hung up.  
My internet finally loaded and it was time for me to blog. I opened up my webpage and clicked to post a new entry. My blog was called "Charlie's Bucket" and I guess I got a decent amount of followers. I didn't just teen blog all the time, but I talked about important things, and talked about some things I wanted to do in life. But basically it was all a cleverly worded clump of random thoughts I had at any given time.  
I was in the midst of writing when a new comment popped up.  
"I have an idea for your bucket. Follow the link." from an anonymous reader.  
I warily followed the link to a page that was all black. I thought my computer froze.  
"Dammit!" I hissed. Why did I have to follow a strange link?! I wasn't an idiot, but I guess I had a little more faith in my readers. I kept clicking in various spots on the page and angrily swiveling my mouse around.  
In the middle of my mini tantrum, my mouse quickly glazed over something purple and small. I slowly retraced my cursor to locate the mysterious purple thing. A small, question mark popped up under the arrow. I felt cautious of clicking on it, but did anyway. I needed a new laptop anyway.  
All I saw on the page was the silhouette of a man with his back turned. He was wearing a crooked top hat and I can only see the outlines of coat tails.  
"Good evening friends. Glad you could make it." He turned around and started to walk forward. When he stepped into the light, I slightly flinched back. His black, worn top hat sat crooked on his messy , faded, orange curls that fell just below his chin. His dark green eyes had an eerie glint to them, which made me shiver. His hooked nose came down right above his jagged, creepy smile. He wore a tattered, black coat with the tails trailing behind him, and a blood-red vest underneath. His faded black slacks looked like they were the only part of his outfit that was actually intact, other than his shiny gold walking stick. "If many of you don't already know, my name is William. And I am the creator of the up-and-coming haunted house, The Other Half."  
I had heard something about this before. Some of my friends would tell me about it. The Other Half was this new haunted house that was opening up in downtown Denver, just about fifteen minutes away from where I lived, and it was supposed to be the biggest haunted house around in a long time. Most haunted houses were just sloppily thrown together a couple of weeks before October in really small locations, like a bar or a family fun center, charging you a bunch of money to get in and didn't really scare you at all. They just got you incredibly irritated and dizzy. A bunch of my friends wanted to get together and go to the opening of this haunted house just before Halloween because they said it would be the best and scariest time to go.  
My thought process was cut off by the mysterious William, continuing his strange introduction. "I want The Other Half to be the most sensational, new haunted house around. It will bring in all shapes and sizes of thrill seekers! Not only in the state of Colorado, but all around the United States. Now, I know that the grand opening is not until the tenth of October, but I want to personally invite five brave souls to be my personal guests on the_ fifth_ of October. These guests will get to go through the house before anyone and get to partake in the spine-tingling horror within."  
His shifty smile and frightening eyes made me scared enough. But I had to admit, this sounded kind of tempting. I had always loved horror movies and going to haunted houses and if this one was going to actually scare me, it would be worth it. And, like my anonymous commenter had said, this would be good for my "bucket." I could blog all about this when I was done and then my readers would maybe try it out. I had to take risks now and then, because that is definitely what my blog was for in the first place: To take risks and cross things off of my bucket list.  
"To those courageous souls who are interested, this will not be the easiest contest to win. I have hidden five, red tickets in various places all across the US. I will post hints about the whereabouts of each ticket on this site. It is your quest to decipher my clues and find the ticket. If you find one, post the picture of yourself with it to the main page of the 'Red Ticket' tab on this site." His cold eyes seemed to stare directly at me. "I look forward to seeing you."  
The screen went dark just before letting the rest of the website pop up. I scanned down the page to look for clues and hadn't found one yet. I checked the date of the video. It was made today.  
Well, I was determined to try to make this happen. Even if I didn't win, I sure as hell wasn't gonna sit back and not give it a shot.


	2. Chapter 2 (August)

"Hey, where are you?" Paul said on the other end.  
"I'm around the corner. Just wait a sec. Bye." I almost dropped my phone when I tried to hit the END button. I stuffed my phone back into my back pocket and started to sprint down the street.  
I pushed my black Ray Bans further up my nose, to avoid being blinded by the blazing California sun. I was late for band practice… again. To be honest, I never really looked forward to it. Just me and four other guys, some who bring their girlfriends, cramped into a hot garage. And because the temperature read a scorching ninety nine degrees, it was even more dreadful.  
After about a minute, I pushed through the door to find my band mates Paul, Nate, Liam and Wren. I joined Paul and Liam on the far couch, surrounded by stacks of cds, instruments and empty Pepsi bottles. Wren was tangled around his girlfriend Celia and Nate was hunched over his laptop, typing away.  
Nate's eyes briefly glanced up to spot me sitting down. "Hey August." He greeted me with him monotonous voice.  
"Dude, here's what's going down. We have a gig lined up but it isn't for about another month. Mid October. We're gonna be playing a house party for some rich kid and his friends." Liam was telling me. I was pretty excited.  
We had started to get more and more gigs, which were always fun to play. Liam and Paul had been my best friends since fourth grade, and we have always loved music. When we were old enough to actually know what to do as a band, Paul found Nate and Wren to join up with us. I looked at the picture that we had hanging over the drum set of the five of us, taken right after we won our middle school's Battle of the Bands. I realized how ridiculous we all looked back then, especially me. I was a little kid with my thick rimmed glasses, braces and hair that I thought was cool because I was in a band. It was sort of long (well as long as my mother would let it be) and probably hit around my chin. Definitely the furthest thing from a chick magnet.  
But I've finally got my bearings is the fashion department. Because my parents are pretty wealthy, they always want me to look my best. My hair now is the short, styled up in the front, look. I styled it that way for the longest time, and now when I don't put gel in it, it stays up anyway. My braces are long gone and I wear contacts now and then. My little confidence boost definitely helped out my music.  
Paul morphed the conversation into one about our Halloween plans, when Celia decided to finally pay us some mind. "My friend was telling me about some huge haunted house that's opening up in Denver. It's supposed to be like, the newest craze. It's this big mystery private tour thing and tickets are hidden all around the country. Doesn't that sound sick?" She looked like an excited little puppy.  
"That does sound pretty cool. I'm gonna go look it up." Nate was already at Google punching in random words, hoping to find some information. Our group really liked to go to haunted houses, except for Liam. Liam had a bad experience a couple of years ago when we went to one about a week before Halloween. We went to one that had something to do with a butcher, and while you would wait in line, a guy with a fake chainsaw would walk past you and try to intimidate you. Sometimes he would even chase random people. He came up to our group and some of us would laugh at another one of our friends because they were the closest to him or because they were the most scared. He chased us around the field, revving the chainsaw louder and louder. He decided to set his sights on Liam. The ran around until Liam made it closer to where we all were, and he tripped. He fell to the ground, and the chainsaw guy was hovering over him with his huge weapon. After a few minutes he walked away, but to this day Liam was still a little weirded out by any haunted house.  
My memory was cut off by a creepy voice coming from Nate's speakers. We all gathered around to watch this strange man talk endlessly about this contest. I kept thinking that this looked really intriguing, but bizarre. But it actually sounded kind of fun.  
When the video was over, we navigated to the clue page and found five posts. Paul read one of them aloud:  
_ To my friends of the sunshine:_  
_ I wish to share with you _  
_ A classic language_  
_ Shrouded in mystery_  
_ And imagination. _  
_ In the largest maze of words,_  
_ You must seek the _  
_ Mystery in the masque. _

When Paul finished reading, we all just sat in silence. I mulled this clue over and over in my mind. It kept coming back to me throughout the rest of practice.  
The next day after I got back from school, Paul called me. "Hey August, you want to go to the library for that English project? Liam and I are going to head down there in a couple minutes."  
"Sure. See ya there."  
At the library, we found a table in the back and unexcitedly pulled out our English assignments. We had to read and analyze The Tell-Tale Heart. "I'm going to go find the book that has this in it." I told the two of them before getting up and retreating to the computer that had the catalog.  
After about five minutes of scouring the fiction section, I finally found the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Tell-Tale Heart. Tell-Tale Heart. Where the hell is it? I kept thinking. My eye caught on a tattered copy of a book with the title Tales of Mystery and Imagination. I was fixated on this book. My mind was swirling with the creepy voice of the strange man "Mystery and imagination."  
The next thing I knew, I was running back to my table. "Paul!" I whispered hurriedly, while getting a slightly disgusted look from a passing librarian. "Let me borrow your laptop."  
He passed me his laptop with a confused look. I ignored him and pulled up Google. I skipped the video of the man and clicked the clue tab. I reread the passage at least three times before hurrying back to the aisle I was in. I pulled the book off the shelf, realizing that I wasn't quite sure if this was right. I looked through the contents on the first page and scanned until something stood out to me. It was a weird list of stories. Morella, Bon-Bon, Ligeia and then something that got me a bit excited. The Masque of the Red Death. Masque…  
I flipped open the book to the correct page to find nothing. Damn, I thought. I really thought I was onto something. I brought the book back to the table and handed it to Liam.  
"What was that huge freak out about dude?" he asked quietly.  
I sighed. "I thought I had something. Well with the whole haunted house ticket thing. I mean maze of words: library. Mystery and Imagination: the book with all the Edgar Allan Poe stories. Masque: The Masque of the Red Death. I read everything- wait." I grabbed the laptop and read it again.  
I looked up at the two of them, excited. "I know where it is."


End file.
